LETTERS: In the past two Asian Netball Championships, the national team finished third behind Sri Lanka and Singapore.
In the recently concluded Asian Championships (Sept 3-11), Sri Lanka defeated hosts Singapore 63-53, while our team outclassed Hong Kong 52-42.
Sri Lanka, which won the title for a record sixth time, were powered by 43-year-old Tharjini Sivalingam, who is 2.06m tall and plays for City West Falcons in Australia's Victorian Netball League.
Even if we qualified for next year's world meet in South Africa, we are still way behind the European, African and Carribean teams, because they have all earned their honours at regional and international meets.
Our team needs to identify its shortcomings, drop underperforming players and adopt a more efficient coaching line-up.
I have been following the national team's exploits ever since Trinidad and Tobago coach Enid Browne was roped in to prepare our squad for the 16th Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur 24 years ago.
We can learn skills such as agility, flexibility, passing, scoring and defence from Sri Lanka and Singapore.
The best way for us to improve will be to hire more foreign coaches from the top two netball countries of Australia and New Zealand.
Under present Australian coach Tracey Robinson since 2016, our team were gold medallists in the 2017 Kuala Lumpur and 2019 Manila Sea Games.
The national team is usually composed of best players from the national meet and Malaysia Games (Sukma), who will in turn undergo centralised training for about month before heading off for the Commonwealth, Asian or World Cup tournaments.
In addition we should employ former top player Fadzlun Abas, who is now 40 years old.
Fadzlun was the best shooter in the 2000 World Junior Netball Championships in Cardiff, Wales.
She can share her experience and knowledge of playing in international meets.
Team selectors should also rope in the top three high jumpers from each state from the girls' Under-15 and Under-18 age groups.
Following in the footsteps of our three-time Sea Games champions women's basketball team, the chief coach should teach these high jumpers the netball skills and pick the best 12 for the national team alongside specialised netball players who are well versed in the skills and rules of the sport.
Netball officials always talk about our physical disadvantage as Europeans and Africans are taller and bigger.
But, we can also learn from small-sized Japanese athletes who have excelled in football, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball, athletics and baseball.
Michael Cheng
Seremban, Negri Sembilan
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
